


I started doing all this reading

by sundancekid



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Gen, Libraries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-25
Updated: 2012-10-25
Packaged: 2017-11-17 00:19:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/545433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sundancekid/pseuds/sundancekid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She did this every year, but she still got a bit nervous and excited, to see so many old friends and colleagues. And of course, her conference buddy. A couple years ago, her life got really weird, and he'd <em>understood</em>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I started doing all this reading

**Author's Note:**

> The idea for this fic came from Wincon 2012 and our delightful group _Teen Wolf_ viewing. Thanks to everyone who got excited, contributed ideas, and/or let me rattle on at them about this.
> 
> I have played fast and loose with the timelines involved.

She'd already checked into the hotel (thanking the gods once again that the district had enough money to let her get her own hotel room), changed, and freshened up, so she was ready to hit the bar for happy hour. She smoothed her hair down as she walked into the hotel bar -- she did this every year, but she still got a bit nervous and excited, to see so many old friends and colleagues. And of course, her conference buddy. Though they phoned and emailed occasionally, they only actually saw each other once a year (and wouldn't he hate to be called a "conference buddy," which was part of why she thought of him that way -- indignation was his cutest emotion), but it was absolutely a highlight of the conference, and in many ways, of the year. He'd been her mentor, fresh out of school, and that had been an eye-opening experience in a lot of ways. And then, a couple years ago, her life got really weird, and he'd _understood_. He'd believed her, and he'd been an invaluable resource.

She stepped through the doorway, eyes adjusting to the bar gloom. She scanned the room, waving to a friend from school, and a colleague from her district, before she saw him, sitting in the corner, looking faintly embarrassed (as he so often did).

Above him, the banner read _California School Library Association 2012: School Libraries Link Lifelong Learners_.

"Giles!" she said happily, waving and making her way toward him.

\-----

Her last semester of library school, she had to do a practicum at a high school. There'd been a mixup with her registration, so by the time she got matched, every school that had agreed to take on a library school student had been picked.

Her adviser said, "I called in a favor. He called in a favor. Whoever he called called in a favor. You're off to... Sunnydale. I guess that's near LA? Your practicum adviser's name is... Rupert Giles. Ooh, I bet he's British."

He had been. Extraordinarily so. And he'd run a very stuffy, old-fashioned library with entirely too few computers, and not because of budget reasons. The man still had a card catalog -- that he used!

She'd shown up with visions of starting book clubs, of running workshops on writing essays for college applications. She'd had fantasies of getting the right book in the right hands that kept a kid from dropping out (and led him to go on to be a great novelist, dedicating his first novel [which would win the Pulitzer, or the National Book Award] to her, the visionary who inspired him all those years ago). She was going to make the library into a fun, relevant, hip place where kids enjoyed spending time.

Instead, she'd shelved. So much shelving. She'd shifted stacks, and relabeled shelves, and tried to drag Giles into the twentieth century, never mind that they were rapidly approaching the twenty-first. She'd tried to be friendly and welcoming to students, if they wandered in (whereas Giles was dour and grumpy and frightening). She'd learned to make tea exactly the way he liked it. She tried to like Southern California, and this weird little town (which was weirdly white, given the demographics of Sunnydale County).

Giles had been very particular about his books -- not that unusual, among librarians, but his books were... weird. The fiction section's most current novel was Judy Blume's _Forever_ ("Does anyone really care about that sort of thing?" he'd asked when she pointed this out, to which she could only sputter), and the nonfiction... well.

" _Blood Rites and Sacrifices_?" she called, four hours into shelf reading and not yet out of the 130s. "Lot of demand for that here? Too many parents too strict with curfews?"

"Ha ha," Giles said. "Be careful with that, it's sixteenth century."

"Then why the hell keep it in a high school?" she called to his retreating back. "Don't you know teenagers and rare books don't mix?"

The whole library was like that, just all kinds of weird, obscure books, some of which were available for checkout, but most were set aside, like Giles' own personal Restricted Section. What the hell a small town librarian needed a library of books on the occult for, she didn't know.

And she'd tried to ignore how weird things were. A new student, Buffy Summers (Southern California, seriously), had arrived just before she left. And... things had happened. She still wasn't really sure what, exactly, but kids died. That was of course a very real risk you took, working in a high school, but you didn't expect it that way. You thought, car accident, or overdose. Not murder via bloodletting, or whatever. They had explanations, and those explanations made sense. Sort of.

But Giles... whatever was happening, he hadn't been surprised the way she was. And that new student, there was something about her. But even if the official stories didn't make a lot of sense, there was nothing else it could be.

\-----

After her practicum, she moved back to Northern California and took a job at another high school, where she renewed her commitment to student-focused, passionate librarianship.

And things were going so well. She worked for a district with good funding, where the library was valued as a core component of the school's mission to educate students. She had good relationships with her principal and the other teachers. 

She heard about the school blowing up in Sunnydale, of course, and she reached out Giles, but he was busy (obviously) and they played a bit of phone tag, and then she gave him the giantest hug at the next conference, and got him really drunk. And that was her life. She was living in a small town (like Sunnydale, an unusually un-diverse place), with gorgeous redwoods and a quick drive to the coast. 

And then shit got really weird in Beacon Hills.

\-----

She'd started to wonder, not too long after the Hale fire. A tragedy, of course. She'd liked Laura Hale, as a student.

But it just didn't quite add up. She wasn't sure how, but it didn't.

But life moved on. And then they found Laura's body, and Derek Hale was arrested for it.

And Stiles Stilinski (that kid was seriously her favorite student, though she was never ever going to tell him so, nothing good could come of that) came in one day, wanting books about lycanthropy, and he even dug out some seriously old books she hadn't realized she even had. Old books, the kind that belonged in an archive and had no business in a high school library. The kind of books Giles had.

When he'd returned the books, Allison Argent had checked several of them out almost immediately, and they'd chatted about her history project on her family (lots of kids had come to the library from that class). Allison had said something that made her wonder, and she'd done some investigating.

It sounded crazy. The whole year was crazy. Of course it was just a mountain lion.

Right?

\-----

She hadn't meant to get quite this drunk at a professional conference, but it had been a long week. A long month. After a dance, a bunch of her kids had been involved in... a shootout? She wasn't even sure. The sheriff's department wasn't talking. Lydia Martin was still in the hospital after being attacked. She'd hesitated about going, about leaving her community at a time like that, but her principal had insisted.

And that's how she found herself having a drink with Giles, trying to find the words to tell him what had happened in Beacon Hills, and, even harder, what she thought of it.

"Giles," she asked, carefully swirling her straw through her Jack and Coke, "have you heard any news reports about what's been happening in Beacon Hills?"

"I have," he said slowly, taking off his glasses and polishing them on his vest. "It sounds very strange."

"It has been," she agreed. "It's just... it's just that..." She trailed off, stabbing her straw into her drink as she searched for what she wanted to say.

Finally she asked, "Giles, what really happened in Sunnydale? It was never just kids hopped up on PCP, was it?"

"Ah, no," he said. "And you don't believe you have just a mountain lion, do you?"

\-----

A week after she got back to Beacon Hills, a huge box of books was delivered to the library. The note on top, taped to a box of his favorite tea, said _To get you started -- RG_ , and he had sent her many, many books, fascinating ones, too old and valuable to lend to students (or to be handled by her, really). So she did a lot of reading. She emailed Giles. He sent her links to websites, and put her in touch with a former student of his who could help her with her Internet searches.

The more she realized what was going on, the worse she felt.

There were more murders. Sleepy little Beacon Hills' crime rate shot through the roof. She got a new principal, who was absolutely terrifying. She put her head down, focused on maintaining her library, justifying her budget (not that her new principal seemed to care much about it either way, nor about test scores or the arts or anything much at all, really, beyond wigging everyone the fuck out).

That's why she was looking forward to this year's conference so much. So much crazy shit, horrifying shit, had happened, and she wanted Rupert Giles to make sense of it for her. And barring that, she wanted him to get her very, very drunk.

And that's why they were in this hotel bar, ignoring all the other librarians (who were starting to get pretty rowdy), Giles listening to her as she talked.

"And our new principal, Giles! He's so fucking creepy!"

"I do, actually, have some experience with that," he said.

She sighed. She was very drunk. Her drink was empty, another tragedy in a truly terrible year.

"Giles, does it ever get any easier?"

"Ah," he said, taking off his glasses again.

"That's British for _no_ , huh?"

He smiled. "I can offer you some assistance. Not much, but some. Training. Books, of course."

"Of course, books. Greatest weapon in the world, books."

Giles rolled his eyes at her. "Don't quote that rubbish at me. Just because I'm British doesn't mean I have any patience for that sort of... silliness."

"It's hard to have just enough of the answers to know that shit is scary."

He just patted her hand, and said, "Let me get you another drink."

\-----

The sun was shining very brightly for how hungover she was. She had checked out of the hotel, and was standing out front, waiting for her car. Giles was holding his own luggage, waiting with her.

"Next year?" she asked, shifting her suitcase handle from one hand to the other.

He smiled, and offered her his hand. "Next year."

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from something Stiles says to Scott in the pilot.
> 
> The 2012 California School Library Association Conference theme is in fact School Libraries Link Lifelong Learners, according to [their website](http://www.csla.net/index.php/events/2011-annual-conference), though it won't take place until next month.


End file.
